Are you ready for genuine revelations on the future of WoW? Well, I've got good news for you. Over the course of seven expansions, we have sorted out the Legion, right? But we've spent maybe more time campaigning against and finally clearing Azeroth of a far more insidious threat - the Old Gods. Or so we thought. I mean, when N'Zoth went down so easily in BFA, quite a few of us scratched our heads, especially because of some oddly prophetic things that he said. Today, we can actually re-engage in that for a discovery on the Forbidden Reach coming in World of Warcraft's next patch has set an important part of WoW's canon back on track.
There is a fifth God - a fifth Old God on Azeroth - and we should have almost no idea what or where they are, except we do kind of have a few theories. And finally, there is huge evidence that what we've previously called, in decades of speculation, the backside of Azeroth - that it is real and that we may even go there soon, like how you should go to today's sponsor, Gotcha, it's actually us. So, look, guys, there's really big news. The Pale Beyond, which is the game that we've been developing for the last while, it's actually coming out in just 10 days, which is kind of terrifying. Here it is in a deck, which is neat, but people have really loved the demo, and just from all our testing so far, I think we're really headed for a great launch.
Yeah, the game is on Steam, if you'd like to check it out. Consider wishlisting on Steam; that truly does help us out a great deal. And if you want a taste of the game, then you can play a two-hour-long demo for the prologue right now. It's a slightly older build, but you'll get the gist. And over on the Bellular Studios YouTube channel, we've actually dropped a one-hour-long ambient soundtrack mix which, yeah, a lot of people are enjoying. So there we go. It is insane that we're almost at launch. Like, here I am with it running in a deck, which is mad.
Yeah, look, obviously, we love your support, so I guess thank you for considering. And with that said, let's get back to the video. Today's discovery comes from a book that we've spotted in the Forbidden Reach on the PTR, but the book's origin is far older than Dragonflight, the Old Gods, and the Ordering of Azeroth.
It's a tome that we actually found in a few places 17-18 years ago in Vanilla, and it serves as the foundation of what we know about the world. It tells us the story of how the Titans destroyed the evil Black Empire, chained the Old Gods beneath Azeroth, created the Well of Eternity, and shaped the beautiful world that we all got lost in. It's actually even older than Vanilla, though. Actually, it's a slightly updated version of a text from the very beginning in Warcraft 3's manual.
In terms of canonicity, it was word of God telling us background lore, and of course, we all believed it. This book, though, is full of notes. The new version is the same book but it's full of notes that are scribbled on the margins, and those notes call it ****. They're written emotionally, angrily, almost with a scarf. The Titans are called pathetic for not realizing Sargeras's betrayal earlier.
It attacks the narrative that the Black Empire was evil. Evil according to whom? It says it was the Mentioned in the book, we kind of thought Blizzard had done the same, especially since Chronicles said that after they defeated the third Old God, C'Thun, there was only one left. But by this stage, we do know that Chronicle isn't exactly reliable.
You know, Titan perspective and all that stuff. But now that they've drawn attention to the fact that Chronicle itself, when it came out, caught an older piece of lore, I think that's Blizzard wanting us to remember something. Right now, there is one known prime candidate for a fifth Old God, and thanks to us, they're roaming the cosmos free - Xal'atath, imprisoned in the Blade of the Black Empire. Undiscovered by us in Legion, the artifact's weapons lore that we discover through that expansion says that she may have been the remnants of a long-forgotten Old God consumed in the early days of the Black Empire.
She herself said that she was betrayed by her kin. "We may face some of my brethren in this conflict," a prospect that delights me. "Their power will be mine. They will pay for what was done to me long ago." Yeah, she's clearly pissed. Kind of interesting, though. I mean, is the enemy of an enemy our friend or not? But she may not be the fifth after all.
There is an inconsistency that you've noticed here that suggests somebody is lying. Xal'atath allegedly was consumed in the early days of the Black Empire, and the Blade itself is of an Old God origin lost during the Sundering but otherwise roaming around Azeroth doing dark shenanigans. Now that means that she would not have been imprisoned by the Titans as is said in the Old Gods in the Ordering of Azeroth. Perhaps she wouldn't even be known to the Titans.
Who knows what's going on there? We'll have to find out the truth, of course, when she inevitably returns to the game in some form of Void expansion that was recently hinted at. But the thing is, besides Xal'atath, there are other possibilities and more revelations from our annotated book. Like the back of Azeroth. A fifth Old God is one thing, but Blizzard may have finally given us the wink-wink, nudge-nudge about an entire part of the world that we've only ever imagined. Look at this map. This is what we've been told the world looks like in the version of history we've been told in this lore book. The Titans made giants to shape the Earth, creating the perfect continent, calling it Kalimdor.
But the apparent raving madman who's been writing notes in the margins of the Old Gods in the Ordering of Azeroth calls the author either a fool or a liar, accusing them of spreading Titan propaganda or being ignorant of what lies beyond the waves. Hmm. What does lie beyond the waves? I've always wondered. Well, we wandered until Dragonflight. I mean, every place on Azeroth has been part of Kalimdor until the Sundering.
The Dragon Isles is actually the first place that's a true, like, island that wasn't a part of that supercontinent, right? And there's also a very odd thing that's happened. Have you noticed how Kalimdor was suspiciously moved on the world map for Dragonflight, seemingly making some space for something in the future? I mean, sure, maybe it's a new elf tree, but Dragonflight has actually teased a whole new location related to things the Titans would have wanted to keep a secret. Now we've got to talk about everybody's favorite [ __ ], Odin.
He is the one who led the disinformation Odin's might would know if Odin were to call anyone a heretic, it would likely be the mortals that Odin quite clearly despised and distrusted, or even some Titan-forged or Keepers who ended up being allied with the Old Gods, which, given Lokan, is not an insane thing to have happen.
So, Avalor, and by the way, you've got to check out the video that we last did on lore, it's about the humans, and it does cover Avalor. I'd say this Avalor and Avalon seem kind of similar. There is an Avalon within World of Warcraft, but it's called New Avalon, which makes me say to you, "Well, how do you have New York without there being a place called York?" We're thinking about it; check the video out. It'll add some color to this one.
Anyway, Avalor, a land of heretics kept secret by the Titan Keepers and nowhere to be seen on our maps, be they modern or ancient. If that is not the perfect place for a fifth Old God to stay hidden, then what is? But the revelations from the book do not end there, so stay strapped in. At the continent's center, the Titans crafted a font of scintillating energy. The lake, which they named The Well of Eternity, was to be the font of life for the world. Its potent energies would nurture the bones of the world and empower life to take root in the land's rich soil.
Or, if the anti-Titan lunatic friend that we've made in the margins of this notebook would say, "Quote, the Titans wounded the world with their recklessness, then insisted it was done by design. Preposterous. It was the Old Gods who nurtured the flesh of this world, not the Titans." Hmm, he's quite a spicy fellow. So we've known for years, right, that the Well of Eternity was not just created, or la-di-da lovely, by the Titans.
No, it was an accident from Amsul reaching down to the world with his giant celestial body and ripping isharge out of it, well, crust, but in the process, leaving a wound, a great wound in the world that would then be called The Well of Eternity, for the literal life blood of Azeroth is what would nurture the lands around it. So the reveal here that our writer claims the Old Gods nurtured Azeroth is not particularly absurd. In whatever history, wherever it may come from, be it Titan Keeper in this book, clearly the actual Well of Eternity story is changed, which is basically something in the cast of doubt on the veracity of this book. Originally found in Vanilla and Warcraft 3, and that we've really known as incorrect since the midst of Pandaria.
Kind of interesting. I'd also like to note flesh, oh yes, flesh. Flesh is what our raving madman says in the margins of this book, and it's an interesting word because of course of the Curse of Flesh, right? That's from the Old Gods, and the Curse of Flesh is the origin of most mortals on Azeroth.
Was Odin then trying to hide the primordial races of Azeroth, like the proto-drakes and the trolls, essentially to hide how they came to be? You look at a proto-drake in World of Warcraft, right? It's a flashy gnarly dude, but per the Lord Dragons, initially descended from elements.
Now, how do you make the evolutionary leap from being a rock to being flashy? The Curse of Flesh is consistently what it has been, be it I've been acting like whoever wrote these notes in the margin of this book is some completely untrustworthy lunatic.
Now it's time to talk about who it probably is. So, this book is from Neltharion's private collection, which kind of suggests that he wrote them. The notes have got the same character as the ramblings of a Twilight cultist. They speak with certainty, anger, like somebody raging against the lies they've been brought up to believe.
They read like a mind that is starting to fall to madness. You know they're clear, they're sensible, but a bit insane. They're full of snark, they're smug, they have real knowledge. If Deathwing is the one who wrote these, then it offers us a glimpse into who he was when he was still Maltharian, around the time he made the Drakthia when he was fed anti-Titan truths, or maybe Old God lies, and the beginning of the spiral in his mental state that would lead to him being the madman that we had to put down.
Now I have one final revelation from this book. The passage reads, "As Twilight fell on the final day of their labors, the Titans named the continent Calendar Land of Eternal Starlight." To this Maltharian or whoever wrote these responses, replied with snark: "Ah, yes, the Titans' final erasure of the wonders that once existed. They even stole away the land's true name and replaced it with one of their own." True name that could simply be the name that the Black Empire gave to the land, and some people may say, "Wow, what Steve Danuzer done this time, he's wet and ratcom the name of Kalimdor." I wouldn't necessarily say so.
I live in a place that we currently call Ireland, but it was called Hibernia by the Romans. What's its first name? "I burn you." Did we wreck something when we started to call it Ireland? I wouldn't particularly think so, and when we're talking about a big secondary world like that of Warcraft, we've got to have room for history and change over history.
The tense here is that there's essentially an entire age of wonders erased by Titan propaganda that we've yet to think about, yet to discover. And to get there, we may have to find a fifth Old God, and probably on another continent, perhaps one that is on the other side of Azeroth. Make no mistake, this is Blizzard truly setting up a future of Warcraft in a way that we have not seen before.
Now, I know the dragon flight just started, but I hope you're as excited for the 11.0 announcement as I am. I love how this lore is expanding. It is expanding via, I mean let's be real, an underwritten character getting character.
Deathwing looked cool in the cinematic, but he was just a big evil dragon, right? He was an underwritten character we're kind of used to those existing within the canon of Warcraft, but to actually see more of who Neltharion was, what took him on the journey that he went to, how was the burden that the Titans put on him rather unfair, especially considering they may not have given him complete information? What did he think when he actually found out the truth? This gives us an opportunity to understand, connect with, to empathize with the character of Neltharion.
And that, everybody, is really the reason why you look at Cataclysm, you see Deathwing, he's a lame villain, even though he looks cool, but you look at Wrath of the Lich King and Arthas, and you think Makes this a secondary world that inspires adventure and sparks the imagination. So, I hope you've enjoyed today's video.
I highly recommend you check out our video about basically how Blizzard is doing a similar thing with the origin of humanity and making the humans of Warcraft, who generally would have been the boring foil that you and I are supposed to understand because we are humans, and actually giving them a really good backstory. Very interesting stuff, so check out that video next if you want some entertainment. Of course, support today's sponsor if you want to support the show. With that, have a brilliant day, and I'll see you next time!
